I recently got a Roku. I have an LG flat screen. Visually, the Roku works fine. But I can’t figure out how to get sound to play through my stereo receiver.
For cable, I use HDMI 2 Input. I have regular jacks that go to my receiver to the number 2 Video plugins. It has worked this way for years. The Roku takes HDMI 3 Input. Picture works fine. I’ve tried connecting my audio jacks to number 1 Video and CD plugins. Neither works. I tried replacing number 2 Video. Still no sound.
So, I looked to Google. I found a video of a techie who said to use “double-sided jacks.” When I googled “double-sided jacks” I got “stereo jacks,” so that’s what I bought. I asked the Best Buy clerk if these would work to connect a flat screen TV to a stereo. He said yes. I should have asked him if they actually WORK. Turns out they don’t.
I’m at my wit’s end. I don’t understand why my setup doesn’t work or what to do about it. Home theater experts, help me!
Since I don’t know the model of your TV, or stereo, I’m going to make a suggestion that may or may not work. Any chance the TV has a plain old “audio out” jack? Like what headphones would fit into. And a corresponding “audio in” on the receiver? With all the devices I have plugged into the TV, the easiest way to connect all that audio to the stereo (an old Fisher) was to use a little 3.5mm dual-ended jack as a single source from the TV to the receiver.
I’m having some trouble understanding what your setup is. It sounds like you’re trying to get audio from your Roku to your stereo receiver, correct?
When you say “regular jacks” are you talking about RCA jacks?
What do you mean by “number 1 video” and “number 2 video?” Are these inputs on your stereo receiver or TV or something else? If they’re RCA jacks, what color are they? I suspect you might be trying to connect an audio signal to a composite video input, which normally have yellow RCA jacks.
Edit: Also, which model Roku and stereo receiver do you have?
These days, HDMI carries both audio and video signals. Commonly, you connect HDMI from cable/DVD/Roku etc. to your receiver which routes the sound to your speakers and the video (via another HDMI cable) to your TV.
If you are not doing that, you must be connecting HDMI to the TV. In that case, you have to setup the TV to send the audio back to your receiver.
Does your stereo receiver input need to be changed when you want to listen to the TV? I do this, and my amplifier needs to be switched manually from the radio tuner or CD or whatever to AUX.
What does this mean? What device (receiver, Roku, TV, something else) has the HDMI 3 input?
In general there are two main ways to set things up.
Have all of your devices connect to the TV and then send the TV audio to the stereo receiver.
Connect all your devices to the stereo receiver and send the receiver picture to the TV.
You can also mix and match but the above two ways are the simplest.
As an example, my own setup has a PS4 and an Apple TV connected with HDMI cables to the receiver and the receiver sends the video to the TV via another HDMI cable and plays the audio itself. The TV aerial is connected direct to the TV and the HDMI connection between TV and receiver is two way so it can send video from receiver to TV or take the audio from the TV to the receiver.
If you are sending your Roku direct to the TV then you will need to send the TV audio to your receiver, this could be with HDMI, optical audio, or RCA. Make sure that the cable sending audio from the TV to the stereo is connected to an audio OUTPUT jack in the TV and not an INPUT jack.
Model number of the TV and stereo would be very useful as solutions for one system might not work for another. I would recommend against using headphone jacks to get audio from your TV to the receiver as that is not what they are designed for. That would be a last resort because you have ancient equipment without the usual connections.
The easiest way to do this is to connect the HDMI output of the Roku to the HDMI input of the Stereo. Then connect the HDMI output of the stereo to the HDMI input of the TV. Like so:
HDMI HDMI
Roku -----> Stereo -----> TV
The A/V signal will simply pass through the stereo receiver to the TV. You can simply mute the TV and get all audio from the stereo. Or not, your choice.
If your stereo receiver isn’t capable of HDMI pass-through, then you’ll have to come up with a more complicated solution. But see if the above works first.
It might not have to be that complicated. If your stereo doesn’t handle HDMI, does your TV output audio in a format your stereo has inputs for (e.g. RCA)? If so, just run HDMI out of Roku, into the HDMI jack on the TV, then run RCA audio (since your stereo probably takes RCA if it doesn’t take HDMI) out of your TV into your stereo.
Otherwise, you’re looking at having to convert or split an HDMI signal into video and audio*, running the video to the TV and the audio, via a cord your stereo can handle, into your stereo.
I think that Roku 1 had RCA audio outputs. I believe that Roku 3 and 4 do not. I do not know about Roku 2.
*if you have to convert the HDMI signal there is a chance of digital to audio conversion issues and also a chance that High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) issues will not allow your TV to play certain content.
I was assuming OP had 5.1 surround sound. (Why else bother going through a stereo receiver?) Connecting a single HDMI cable for audio is much, much simpler than fiddling with 6 RCA jacks. On the other hand a single S/PDIF connector is about as simple, but I didn’t want to further confuse OP.
I was hoping I wouldn’t have to go into specifics, since I don’t have the model #s at work, but here goes.
The receiver I have is ancient. It still works after 30 years. As such, it doesn’t have an HDMI port.
The LG flat screen has several HDMI ports. HDMI 2 is connected to my cable box. I put the Roku device in HDMI 3. When I want to watch something on Roku, I have to use the Input controls on the flatscreen to get to HDMI 3. I have picture, but no sound, unless I turn on the TV speaker. I don’t want to do that since I want sound to come through my receiver. The front of the receiver has buttons for Video 1, Video 2, CD, Tape, etc. I currently have the cable box hooked up to the Video 2 ports, and I get sound no problem. I’ve tried connecting the flatscreen to Video 1 & CD. Neither works, and neither did Video 2.
I thought I could hook up the RCA jacks I already have from my flatscreen to my receiver, in the same manner I use for my cable box. Still no sound. After watching the video, I went and picked up stereo jacks and tried those. Nada.
The Roku device I have is just a stick that plugs into the HDMI port on my flatscreen. IIRC, a USB port is the only other feature.
How about try the Roku in HDMI 1 and see if sound comes out of outputs “1”… 1 goes to 1 ?
How about try the Roku in HDMI 2 and see if sound comes out of the same output “2”.
Maybe in the Tv’s menu you can convert the “video 1” plugs to be outputs rather than inputs ? is that what is happening to “video 2” for cable ? there’s a setting to change the direction of the audio ???
This is the big question right here. Is there anything anywhere on the back or sides of the TV labeled “Audio out”? If so, with the right kind of cable you can connect it to your stereo receiver.
Are you sure the RCA jacks on the TV are actually audio output jacks? It’s possible your TV doesn’t have analog audio output. If it only has digital output, you need a converter (e.g. something like this if your TV has optical digital audio output).
I just looked at the owner’s manuals for a couple of current-model and discontinued LG TVs. They all had at least one thing in common – none had audio RCA jack outputs, which might have been the easiest for you to use.
The newer TVs output audio only through the HDMI connections, which your stereo doesn’t have. Some of the older LG TVs had optical audio outputs. If your receiver can deal with optical audio input, you may be able to use that to send audio to your receiver. I think I had a receiver roughly 20 years ago that handled optical audio and it looks like the optical audio standard was developed in 1983 so maybe your receiver can use that. Good luck.
This will only work if you are connecting to some sort of audio out on the flatscreen TV. It sounds like you are connecting to an audio input on the TV.
If there is no audio output on the TV (if you find out the model number, we can tell you exactly), then your two options are using a headphone out on the TV in the manner suggested above (cable would look like this) or getting an adapter that splits the audio out from the hdmi cable, also suggested above. That would be something like this.
If your receiver doesn’t have HDMI then you have two possible solutions:
What model of Roku do you have? Some Rokus have both HDMI and composite output, and will output audio simultaneously on both outputs. If you have one of those, you can hook the HDMI to your TV (as you have) and the composite to your receiver. When reporting the Roku model number, use the 4 digit number (eg. “4200”) rather than the marketing number (eg. “Roku 2”), since the latter are not unambiguous. (BTW, I work for Roku.)
As mentioned, if your TV has audio output, and it’s in a form that’s compatible with your receiver, you can connect the TV audio out to your receiver. This may be a composite connection or a SPDIF (optical) connection, or possibly something else. It sounds like you tried something like this, but you have to be sure you’re connecting to the TV’s OUTPUT connector, not input. It should be labeled “OUT” or something similar. If you’re not sure, post the TV model number and someone can figure it out for you.
I get it, I think. Does your TV have outputs for external speakers with RCA outputs (red and white for l and right audio channel)? If so, hook those up your stereo to those using one of the video inputs with RCA jacks. Run the cable box and all other equipment to the TV first so that you don’t have to change inputs on the stereo itself.
If the TV doesn’t have external speaker RCAs then you will have to look at converters and it gets a lot more complicated. FWIW, you could buy an inexpensive decent 5.1 receiver and run it in stereo with no issues, and have the option of full surround sound if you decide to. This would result in you running a grand total of one hdmi cable from the TV to the receiver and you’re done.